


I Would Never (Unless You Tell Me To)

by liamthebastard



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, M/M, Mentions of Derek/Savannah, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-08
Updated: 2016-08-08
Packaged: 2018-08-07 10:02:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7710814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liamthebastard/pseuds/liamthebastard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spencer and Derek had an understanding of sorts...</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>Spoilers for Season 11</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Would Never (Unless You Tell Me To)

Spencer Reid was a hurricane. He’d entered the office and taken it by storm, and Derek could do nothing but watch as people tried and failed to get close to the new golden boy. Derek himself didn’t have a whole lot of interest in kissing ass or trying to ally himself with the kid. He could, however, sit back and watch as yet another agent tried -unsuccessfully- to interact with Reid.

The kid was weird, no doubt about that. He had issues with eye contact, his language was stilted and blunt when it wasn’t outright strange, and God help the poor sucker who tried to touch him. Derek had watched one woman try to flirt with him, and Reid had jumped away from her friendly hand like he’d been burned. It had made Derek smirk. 

They were in the same unit, Reid and the woman, and while there wasn’t a non fraternization policy _per se_ , Hotch would definitely have a few choice words if Reid and someone else in their unit started something. 

Reid was a creature of habit, Derek had noticed. He took his tea break -rarely coffee, and only if he seemed particularly tired- at the exact same time every day, and broke for lunch at precisely one thirty, baring meetings. If a meeting had to occur during his scheduled breaks, he would just drink his tea from a thermos, or pull a sandwich from his bag and munch away while Derek tried to hide his laughter behind his hand. 

*

After working closely together for almost a year, Derek would call them friends. Reid wasn’t quite so loose with his language, but Derek was wearing him down. They’d started taking lunch together, and Derek had taken to secreting extra sandwiches and protein bars in his briefcase after a flustered Reid had forgotten his one day. When traveling for cases it was a little different, but Derek still kept the protein bars with him if he could. Reid tended to get a little twitchy if he broke his routine too much. 

It was a quiet day in late March, and Derek had managed to convince Reid to do lunch outside for once, in the shade of the trees in a park down the street. Outside of the office walls, Reid seemed to lose a bit of his tension. It made Derek smile to see Reid actually laugh every now and then. Reid’s laugh was so rare, it drove everything else out of Derek’s mind.

That’s the only excuse Derek had for what he did next. One minute, Reid was detailing his latest chess match with Gideon, and the next, Derek had leaned in and kissed him square on the mouth. A breath later, Reid was relaxing into it, and a few moments after _that_ they were pulling apart. 

“I… should _not_ have done that,” Derek said breathily, laughing a little. Reid had this stunned look on his face, like he was still catching up with what had just happened, and it was possibly the cutest thing Derek had ever seen in his life. “Hotch would tear us both a new one.”

Reid frowned, and it broke Derek’s heart a little to see it. “I can’t… Morgan, I need to stay in the BAU. I can’t leave,” he said firmly. Derek raised an eyebrow, confused. 

“Who said anything about leaving?” Derek replied. “Neither of us need to go anywhere.” Reid was clearly still confused, so Derek elaborated. “Look, I like you. And you clearly like me, right? But we’re both adults. We can survive. Now’s not the right time, we work together, and it could ruin things for both of us.”

“But maybe…” Reid began hesitantly. He continued when Derek nodded encouragingly. “Maybe, if one day, things change.”

Derek beamed. “We’ll revisit this then.”

*

They never did revisit it. Spencer sometimes looked back on that afternoon, on that one perfectly-imperfect kiss, like something out of a dream. It wasn’t real, it couldn’t have been real. It had been too wonderful to be anything but a fantasy.

And time had worn on. Their friendship had strengthened until even Spencer would admit that they were practically family. He trusted Morgan, put his faith in him in a way he was reluctant to do with anyone else. Morgan teased him, mocked him, pushed him at every turn; he also praised Spencer, cheered him on, and trusted his judgement. 

He and Morgan both had moved on, to an extent. Morgan had found Savannah, and loved her so much it was clear to anyone who saw him. Spencer had tried, for a brief, selfish moment, to hate her. But it was impossible. She was too good of a person, too bright, too loving, and Morgan loved her too much, for Reid to ever hate her. 

When Morgan said he was leaving, a little part of Spencer wanted to hate Morgan’s child too. But that proved just as hopeless as trying to hate Savannah. The moment Morgan showed him the birth announcement, Spencer was gone. 

And no amount of Derek Morgan’s patented Distancing Language would keep Spencer from tearing up. It didn’t matter how often Derek tried to call him _brother_ , how many _kid_ s Derek threw around, Spencer could see right through it. Derek felt it too, the sense of loss and nostalgia that Spencer had welling up inside his chest. 

Spencer wasn’t alone in this. 

He couldn’t hold back, just this once. Spencer wasn’t sure if Morgan initiated the hug, but Spencer practically collapsed into it. 

“I love you, kid,” Derek said, and Spencer’s heart broke just a little bit more. In that one sentence, he heard everything. Anything they might’ve had someday, any residual relationship that had been lying latent, it was done now. It was the right choice, Spencer knew that, but there was a little bit of him that was still angry at Derek. Angry at him for leaving, angry at him for closing the door on them, angry at him just to be angry. 

But it didn’t make sense to be angry, so he pushed that down. Instead he focused on keeping himself as calm as possible, to make it easier on Derek. Because as badly as it was hurting Spencer to watch this happen, it was hurting Derek just as much. 

“I love you,” he gasped out, and it was the last breath of a dying man. He could only think of a few moments that ranked higher than this one in pain. But he had to be strong, for Derek. 

So he let Morgan show him baby photos, and he made the appropriate sounds and platitudes, and he only hung on a second or two too long when Morgan hugged him goodbye and went to find Garcia. 

Once the door swung shut behind Morgan, Spencer collapsed back into the chair and let out the tears he’d managed to hold back while he and Morgan talked. 

He’d been counting on Someday for so long, without even realizing it. And now that Someday had turned to Never, and there was nothing Spencer could have done to prevent it.

**Author's Note:**

> i just... i dunno. this just happened. let's pretend it didn't.


End file.
